Sunday, September 23, 2012

Wash. to kill pack of at least 8 gray wolves

Washington officials announced plans Friday to
kill a pack of at least eight gray wolves that have been attacking
livestock in the state's northeast corner.

By SHANNON DININNY

Associated Press

YAKIMA, Wash. —

Friday, September 21, 2012

Washington officials announced plans Friday to
kill a pack of at least eight gray wolves that have been attacking
livestock in the state's northeast corner.

The move is likely to anger some conservation groups and deal a
setback to wolf recovery efforts, though state officials said the step
was necessary for sustainable, long-term wolf recovery in the region.

The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife said two teams were in
the field Friday to try to kill members of the Wedge Pack, which ranges
over a remote area of northern Stevens County.
Marksmen would hunt the
wolves from the ground, and if those efforts were unsuccessful, they
might use helicopters to aid their hunt, Director Phil Anderson said in a
statement.

The pack is believed to have killed or injured at least 15 cattle
from the Diamond M herd that grazes in a large area near the Canadian
border, according to the statement. Those attacks have become
increasingly more frequent since July, even after the agency killed a
non-breeding member of the pack in August, and experts believe the
wolves have become dependent on cattle for food.

"Once wolves become habituated to livestock as their primary food
source, all of the wolf experts we've talked to agree that we have no
alternative but to remove the entire pack," Anderson said. "By doing
that, we will preserve the opportunity for the recovery of gray wolves
in balance with viable livestock operations."

Gray wolves were eliminated as a breeding species in Washington by
the 1930s, but they have since migrated to Washington from Idaho, Oregon
and British Columbia. They are listed as endangered throughout
Washington under state law and the western two-thirds of the state under
federal law.
A wolf management plan approved late last year requires 15 successful
breeding pairs for three consecutive years to remove endangered species
protections. Four breeding pairs would be required in eastern
Washington, the North Cascades and the South Cascades or Northwest
coast, as well as three other pairs anywhere in the state.

There are currently eight confirmed wolf packs in the state - five of
them in the state's northeast corner. Four other packs are suspected
but not yet confirmed.

Two groups that participated in the development of the wolf management plan supported the decision Friday.

Cattlemen must work with the state to find solutions that include
nonlethal measures to minimize their losses, said Jack Field, executive
vice president of the Washington Cattlemen's Association. They also are
being encouraged to enter into cooperative agreements with the state for
managing conflicts between livestock and wolves.

Those could include "caught in the act" kill permits to allow
ranchers to kill wolves to protect their livestock. The department also
offers compensation to ranchers for livestock killed by wolves.

Mitch Friedman, executive director of Conservation Northwest, said
that he understands and agrees that pack removal is the right action at
this time, despite his difficulty accepting the decision. But he also
said he hopes the department and ranchers will work together to avoid a
repeat of this situation.
"There has to be a commitment on the part of all sides to allow
wolves to occupy the landscape while protecting the rancher's livelihood
and maintain their ability to raise cattle," he said.

The film offers an abbreviated history of the relationship between wolves and people—told from the wolf’s perspective—from a time when they coexisted to an era in which people began to fear and exterminate the wolves.

The return of wolves to the northern Rocky Mountains has been called one of America’s greatest conservation stories. But wolves are facing new attacks by members of Congress who are gunning to remove Endangered Species Act protections before the species has recovered.

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Inescapably, the realization was being borne in upon my preconditioned mind that the centuries-old and universally accepted human concept of wolf character was a palpable lie... From this hour onward, I would go open-minded into the lupine world and learn to see and know the wolves, not for what they were supposed to be, but for what they actually were.

-Farley Mowat, Never Cry Wolf

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“If you look into the eyes of a wild wolf, there is something there more powerful than many humans can accept.” – Suzanne Stone